OneWest Bank’s acquisition of IndyMac Federal Bank was recently named “Americas Private Equity Deal of the Year” by the Financial Times and mergermarket in their Americas M&A Awards 2009. Cleary Gottlieb acted as lead counsel to OneWest and its parent IMB HoldCo LLC, an entity organized by a consortium of investors led by Dune Capital co-chief executive Steven T. Mnuchin, in the $13.9 billion acquisition of IndyMac Federal Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The purchase was completed on March 19, 2009. IndyMac had been closed by the Office of Thrift Supervision on July 11, 2008, and the FDIC was named Conservator.
This transaction is one of most novel private equity-led buyouts of a failed bank since the credit crisis began and among the most innovative transactions related to the U.S. financial crisis.
Earlier this month, Cleary Gottlieb won “Legal Advisor of the Year in Russia” at the third annual Financial Times and mergermarket European M&A Awards.
Both empirical M&A transaction data and independent expert opinion are utilized to identify the winners of each award. The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading business news organizations and mergermarket leads its field in the provision of M&A deal information and intelligence.